Pokémon Legends: Arceus Review

The important change is that catching is now an action rather than a battle. You crouch in grass, judge a throw, use bait or a distraction, and a successful sneak catch skips combat entirely, so the core activity of the series finally has skill in it rather than a menu loop. Creatures also roam and some of them will attack you, which makes the open zones genuinely tense in a way no previous entry attempted.

The research task system replaces gyms with a checklist of things to learn about each species, and it turns the completionist urge into structure. The Hisui setting and the story about the origin of the profession are better written than the series norm. The visual quality is the obvious problem. Textures are flat, draw distance is short, the frame rate is unstable and the whole thing looks a generation behind its hardware. It is also thin on end game content once the story closes. Rough and genuinely important.